Crystal River current. [volume] (Crystal, Colo.) 1886-18??, 1887-07-16
WILD MEN OF THE PLAINS.

Life of the Sava$es Encountered by
Fremont In His Early Explora-
tions
When Fremont explored the great basin out
Of which Nevada and Utah have since been
carved he found the Indians really wild men.
Their business was to get food, their recrc-
alton to make war. The men Lived alone, the
women lived alone, but the lives Of both were
devoted to getting something to eat, says
The Youths Comp u.ioa. The women CLEANED
from the earth everything Of vegetable or in
sect life; the men killed every animal they
could find for food and every man Of every
other tribe for pleasure.
One day the exploring party encamped two
thousand feet upon mountain, near spring.
Fresh tracks made in the sand BY q woman's
naked feet were discovered but no other indi-
cations Of human life.
Aftor a supper OF antelope stake the men
were lying around the camp fire smoking and
conversing. Kit Carson was lying on his
back with his pipe in his mouth his hands
under his head, and his feet toward the fire.
Suddenly he half rose, and, pointing to the
other side OF the fire, exclaimed: 'Look
there!"
skinny, crooked hands, which shaded her eyes
naked, her grizzly hair hanging over face and
shoulders.
She had thought It camp of her own people
and had begun to talk, when, seeing the white
faces, she became parayzeI with terror.
She turned to escape, but the men, gathered
around her and brought her near to the fire.
Hunger and cold dispeiled her fears, and she
made the white men understand that her own
people had left her to die at the spring because
she was old and no longer good for anything
A quarter of an antelope was given her, but
instead Of roasting 1t by the fire she darted of
with 1t into the darkness.
In the morning ner fresh tracks at the
spring showed that she had been there for
water during the night. The party left for
her little supply Of food which, with what
she could gather from the nut-pine trees, would
prolong her fe.
Wild men though these Indians were their
bows and arrows showed that they were not
destitute Of ingenuity and skill. Their bows
were made strong by winding sinews about
them and their arrows were headed with vol.
canic glass, as sharp as steel, and worked In
by patient labor.
chief OF the Tlanaths, a tribe q little
more advanced than the wild men, was killed
In the night attack. lie had forty arrows in
his culver, which Kit Carson pronounced 1.-THE
most beautiful and war!ike arrows he had ever
secn."
They were headed with lancet-like piece
ofiron, and were poisoned for about six inches,
10 which depth they could be driven into q
pine tree.
These same Indians gathered In q field oil
sagebrush, intending to make hard fight
against Fremont's party. Bat the range oil
the rifles made their arrows useless
When they W. re driven out of the brush II
was discovered that cacI Indian hal spread
his "rrtws on The ground III fanlilsc shape, &C
that .hcy would i,, resly tn his hand The
RAJ, a firing and sha qnck advance of the
. wi, tes f.Tcr.i them IL, leave 81 encsly that
muBt oi them ia ~ tim. 10 rutirr up theii
prvsw- They 'ay M M. ground. wi Ii iiio'I
h'y'. a,en s'ag u.pts turned toward ths
!ssss Msn,